


The Undesired Princess & the Enchanted Bunny (Again): Being the Third Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion

by LooNEY_DAC



Series: The Coin [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 21:27:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LooNEY_DAC/pseuds/LooNEY_DAC





	1. I: An Inventor’s Tale

The wind rose to a near-deafening howl outside, and pitch-blackness enveloped the Garage when the electricity suddenly failed. Just then, a blinding flash of lightning streaked jaggedly across the sky, followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder whose echoes almost drowned out the sound of the incredible downpour outside, the raging gale lashing Uncle Fixit’s house with the already heavy sheets of rain.

I heard a soft click, and a small pool of light fell on the bench Uncle Fixit and I were eating at from a dim, single-bulbed lamp that hung from the workshop’s ceiling. “There. That’s better,” he said in satisfaction. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I was about to tell you the story of how I first found this place.” The light flickered as he spoke, and more heavenly pyrotechnics ensued.

“I had just begun what would become my life’s work as a Creator of Big, Exotic Machines for the Consolidated Big Exotic Machine Works plant that’s just a few miles down the road when I heard about the mysterious disappearance of one of the Works’ founding Creators.” And the thunder crashed appropriately.

“I made it a point to find out as much about this vanished Creator as I could, which wasn’t much. He had lived in this area all of his life, and, like me, he’d notoriously spent every waking hour he could spare working on big, exotic machines. That’s why he co-founded the Works, so that he could have all the room he needed to work on his Machines, and the company of others who shared his passion and talents.

“Anyways, he’d inherited a small house on these grounds, a house he’d converted, little by little, into this Garage, and his ‘antics’ had everyone for miles around terrified that he was doing deals with the Devil. Before he’d helped found the Works, he’d filled nearly every spare nook and cranny with his Machines, a lot of which are still right here, just as he left them.

“He had always been a recluse, but at the end, he became downright paranoid, accusing even his co-Creators of working to bring the Apocalypse down upon us. He stopped going to the Works, spending all of his time in the Garage again, and there people’s knowledge always ended.

“Of the year or so leading to his disappearance, the most that anyone knew was that in the weeks before he’d vanished, he’d had truckloads and truckloads of stuff for his Machines carted onto these grounds, far more than even the Garage could possibly hold. The locals claimed to have seen weird lights above the estate; some claimed they were signals to the aliens he’d been in league with since childhood.

“When he disappeared, the Garage sat empty and undisturbed for months and months, waiting for the right owner to come by. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to be that new owner. But the first time that I went inside, most of the spaces where Big Machines had stood were empty, aside from the dust that marked their former presence.

“I had the main house built up against the Garage, atop an old concrete pad that looked like it been used for rocket launches, so that I could have a place to stretch out and relax when thinking about how I would build my Machines, without taking away any of the great facilities the first owner spent years building in.

“In the first few months I lived here, I kept hearing things. Sometimes I would see lights flickering around one of these corners and go to investigate, only to find a dead end. Sometimes, there were unexpected power dips, like someone was switching Machines off and on in a series of tests. And once, just once--I saw him.

“I was bringing some supplies from a holding bin to this very workroom, and when I turned one of the corners, he was suddenly there, right in my path. He was a lot shorter than I’d thought he’d be, but otherwise, he matched my expectations in every particular.

“He looked up at me and snapped, ‘Well, what do you want, young man?’ for all the world as though I were the interloper, rather than he.

“Naturally, I was a bit taken aback, but eventually I gathered my wits enough to say, ‘Are you the guy who built this place? The guy who started the Consolidated Big Exotic Machine Works? The guy who vanished over a year ago?’

“At each of my questions, he nodded once. ‘I am,’ he replied when I was done. ‘What of it? Come to think of it, why are you even here?’

“I swallowed hard and tried to explain. ‘I--I just got a job at the Works, and everyone thinks you’re dead, so the place was up for sale, and--and--I bought it.’

“He glared at me. ‘Are you the one who covered my launch platform over, then?’

“I was convinced by now that honesty was the best policy. ‘Yes, sir.’

“He waved a hand dismissively. ‘No great loss. But ask first next time!’ That said, he picked up a cable about as thick as my arm from which a dozen or so wires protruded, and twisted two of the wires together, at which that cable lit up like about seven or eight strings of Christmas lights.

“I found my voice again. ‘But--Sir!’

“He glared at me, with a little surprise mixed in. I think he’d just assumed I would be sensible enough to leave after his dismissal of me. Obviously, I wasn’t. ‘What now? I haven’t got all day to do this, young man, and it’s vital that it be done!’

“I moved a little closer to him. ‘Aren’t you planning to tell every one you’re still alive, sir?’ I was rather worried about being turfed out after investing so much of my heart in this place, but it seemed he could tell that I was, perhaps, a kindred soul to his.

“He waved dismissively again. ‘Let them think what they want. They always have, the fools. Pay them no heed, that’s my advice.’ The he turned to me and grinned rather ghoulishly. ‘But in point of fact, they’re right this time. I am dead--dead as Marley’s Ghost.’

“He began to laugh, but as he did, he faded from view, like a spook out of one of those Universal horror films. The cable vanished with him, and after a few seconds, there was no evidence that anyone other than I had been there.

“After that encounter, I began leaving notes about my Machines and other projects on a small table I put in that section of the Garage. They were always there when I went to check on them, but they never seemed to gather any of the dust that haunts this place.

“Sometimes, I still see flickering lights from across the Garage, or hear his dry chuckle, or find that one of his prize Machines has been moved, but only on nights like tonight, when storms are a-raging outside.

“I think I’ll use the restroom,” Uncle Fixit said casually, standing up and going to the door. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Now that was a well-told ghost story. I pulled my hands from my pockets to be ready for whatever mischief Uncle Fixit was planning, and the Coin came with them. The Coin. My gateway to the Realm, but only when I was being called. I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to spin it...

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. II: In Which We Discover that I Am Not the Bunny

After the usual whirling grayness, I found myself standing in the ramshackle hovel where I always arrived in the Realm, with Princess Alamsta staring back at me (again, neither an unprecedented nor an unexpected occurrence), a white, fuzzy little bunny clasped in her arms and her expression even more sour than was usual for her when I was involved.

Now, I’ve halfway described Alamsta’s face in an earlier story in my awkward and inadequate way (in summary: average; neither plain nor pretty), but I haven’t mentioned her coloring, again because, being a guy, I don’t think about these things that much. I mean, she’s Alamsta, which should somehow magically tell you everything about her that I can’t find the words to describe. Silly, I know, but that’s how my brain works, or doesn’t.

At any rate, Alamsta’s coloring actually becomes kind of important later on, so I’ll tell you what it is now: brown. I mean, her hair is a sort of flat, unexciting brown, and her eyes are one of those shades of brown that you see and forget the next minute because, hey, aren’t just about everybody’s eyes that color?

Her skin is a fairly undistinguished shade of brown as well; not the peaches and cream Eurotrash ideal, not the glowing bronze of a Latin American beauty, not the so black it’s blue of an African Queen, not the intriguing russet of a princess of the Six Nations. She was just kind of brown all around.

It hadn’t helped that when I’d first met her, the Magician had forced her to wear a dress that resembled nothing so much as a patchwork of burlap sacks. Even what she was wearing this time, a well-made and sturdy tan walking dress, was of a shade that just added to the overall impression of brown.

“Well met, Your Highness,” I said to Alamsta, who let out a little sort of growly sound, but didn’t actually say anything. On the other hand, or perhaps I should say paw...

“Hey, dude.” Oh, this was just great. The bunny talked, and with a voice that sounded like it belonged to a teenaged girl. To me, that could mean only one thing.

“My heart bleeds for you,” I told the bunny, entirely seriously. “And to what crevice has our erstwhile ‘friend’ the Magician flown off?”

Alamsta’s mouth tightened at the corners, but she let the bunny answer. “Oh, well, like, y’know, the guy that, like, did this to me? He totally bailed, like, a while ago, but he wasn’t, like, that Magician Dude, y’know, ‘cause he was, like, waaaaay more buff than that old creep, y’know?”

“And what is your name, Miss?” I asked the bunny, trying not to stare. I remembered every second that I had been a bunny, and how horrible and humiliating it was, so I would never willingly add to that experience.

“I’m, like, Bunny.” OK. Now I was staring, but it was beyond my control at that point. A talking bunny named Bunny, who talked like a (beach) bunny. And how was that even possible when I was being forced to talk like some bad Shakespeare knock-off?

The silence stretched out until it was just past awkward. Well, there really was only one thing I could say. “Are you attempting, perhaps, some sort of gallows humor?” Which was as close as I could come to saying, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’, in this place.

The bunny sighed. “No, like, my name is really totally Bunny.” She wriggled a little. “You can totally, like, put me down now, Alamsta.”

“And from whence do you hail, Miss Bunny?” I asked as Alamsta placed her furry burden atop a table that, while it looked like a good deep breath could collapse it, actually neither moved nor deformed in any way under the slight load of a bunny.

“Oh, well, I’m from, like, Balboa Island, like, you know?” Well, that explained her speech patterns. I supposed that I should be grateful that she hadn’t been plucked from, for example, New York City, where they prefer to use, shall we say, much stronger words than ‘like’, ‘totally’ and ‘you know’ for verbal punctuation. “It’s this little, like, micro-sized island about, like, ten feet off of the California coast.”

“Yes, my parents took me there once,” I said absently. “But--how did you get here, Miss Bunny?”

Bunny shuffled on the table, bringing up a fine spray of dust with every move she made. “Like, I really have no clue, dude. You know, I was just about to catch a really gnarly wave when I got caught in the curl, but then I was here, and this dude was, like, turning me into a bunny, so, you know, that’s it.”

There was something a little bit off about Bunny’s off-hand explanation of how she got here and became a bunny, not for any lack of sincerity on Bunny’s part, because it seemed that she believed what she was telling me, but because it almost seemed like she was playing back a recording of what someone else had told her about what had befallen her. I set what doubts I had aside for the moment and asked Alamsta, “And what disaster has occasioned my calling in this instance, Your Highness?”

In an amazing display of the versatility of human skin, Alamsta, despite her melanin level, managed to very nearly turn purple with the rage she visibly struggled to contain. “Your Highness?” I asked again when she remained silent, aside from hissing noises that vaguely reminded me of a steam locomotive building up for departure.

Finally, she spoke. Unfortunately, what she said, in a rant that lasted a good ten minutes, was alternately unprintable, incoherent, and incomprehensible, so I’m not putting it in here. But take it as read that she called me every vile epithet with which I was acquainted, and some that I had to ask my Dad about later, which nearly earned me a licking. 

Then she accused me of deliberately staging this whole thing for some vast evil plot, and at least five other conspiracy theories. And a very few times, she actually broke into tears of rage and recrimination, asking me why I’d done it and how could I have done it.

What on earth was this ‘it’ I was being blamed for, anyways? The way Alamsta made it sound, ‘it’ must be no less than the murder of Alamanast, her father. And his entire family. And the whole of the Royal Court as well. Right in front of Alamsta. On her birthday. Which was also Christmas.

Eventually, Alamsta calmed down enough to inform me that apparently I was to be her personal Protector while she was in exile and seeking redemption. I started a bit when she said, ‘exile’, but the look she gave me kept me from asking any more questions.

Bunny told me, “Don’t worry, dude. Like, this’ll all blow over in, like, a week, tops, you know? I mean, His Majesty-ness just wants to, like, teach the kid a lesson, you know?”

Alamsta snorted. “I only wish I could be so sanguine about the matter. But we have tarried here long enough.” She went over to the table and gathered Bunny into her arms. “It is past time for us to be off on our long journey.” So saying, she moved to the door and left the hovel. Sighing, I followed...

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. III: The Path No One Wants to Take

We left the hovel, Alamsta steaming ahead with Bunny, and made our way to the fivefold road junction known locally as ‘the Hand-Spread’, which I thought sounded more like a new brand of margarine than a place where all the roads met, but still-- At any rate, we made our way to the junction and paused for a moment. For the first time, Alamsta looked nervous rather than angry.

On previous trips to the Realm, I had traveled up the ring finger and the thumb. Now, when Alamsta finally stepped forward, she moved down the pinky road, a decidedly more ramshackle path than the others. In fact, it looked like it hadn’t been used for a few centuries.

“So, like, is this the way to the Emerald City?” Bunny asked. I snorted with poorly suppressed laughter. A scarecrow, a tin woodsman or a cowardly lion would probably fit right in with the three of us, though Bunny and Toto might not get along so well.

Still more nervous than angry, Alamsta replied, “No, little Bunny, it is not. Down this path lies the way out of the Realm, a path none of our people has trod these six centuries and more.”

“Then why isn’t it gone completely?” Bunny asked doggedly. (Next on stage, ladies and gentlemen: the Dogged Bunny Show!) “Do you, like, hire cheap foreign dudes to, you know, like, keep it up for you?”

Alamsta paused. “That is not precisely true, though perhaps closer to truth than we of the Realm would like to admit.” The nervousness was beginning to fade from her voice now; and why not? The day was beautiful, and the combination of sun and forest turned our pathway into a great green tunnel, not unlike a street in that Emerald City which Bunny had referenced earlier.

“So, Your Highness,” I ventured, perhaps a shade too casually, “should I be on guard for the spectral spooks that attacked us in the woods earlier, or perhaps the rogue illusionist?” I was decidedly not looking forward to a rematch with either of those two, and both attacking at once would really be disastrous.

"The chief danger in going through these woods is the fauna." Ice encrusted Alamsta’s voice when she spoke to me. Obviously, she was over whatever had given her pause before, and was ready to rip me to shreds for whatever-it-was again.

I tried to deflect her thoughts to the present rather than the past. “Would the worst of these fauna include the sporks the Magician bullied into attacking us?” You wouldn’t think oddly formed cutlery could be so deadly, but these living sporks had the disposition and lethality of piranha.

Alamsta frowned. "The sporks are both deadly and territorial, but they don't usually attack outside their plot unless pushed to by some outside force. No, the real dangers are the striped death mold and the Terror Wing." Neither of which sounded any better, but at least they weren’t spooks or illusions.

The road we were traveling down kept unrolling before our feet without any problems, familiar or unfamiliar, getting in our way to slow us down. Bunny and I chatted companionably for a while as we went further and further along the road without incident, but Alamsta, while volunteering comments to Bunny, never spoke to me unless in response to a direct question I was still mulling over whether this was better or worse than her sniping when we nearly walked into a nest of sporks.

It was both large and elaborate, made from mud, twigs, bits of bark and pieces of bone. The sporks snarled at us in warning as we skirted the nest, but they stayed where they were. It seemed Alamsta was right about their territoriality.

My pulse rate was still recovering from the near miss when Alamsta grabbed my arm with that peculiar grasp that tells you the grabber is utterly terrified. I looked around to see a huge, wingless bird emerged slowly from the forest ahead of us. Like so many of the unearthly denizens of the Realm, it was remarkable in how ugly it was.

We kept moving forward, pretending we hadn’t seen it as yet. The giant bird was moving towards us most purposefully, showing no fear of us, but rather, a predator's caution against setting its prey to flight. Before it got too close, however, I shook off Alamsta’s hand and charged the bird, screaming my closest approximation of the rebel yell.

It was taken aback by my rushing it, but not for long. One terribly clawed foot lashed out as I dodged around it, grabbed a convenient piece of deadwood off the ground, and whacked at it. I definitely had its attention now.

It charged after me, bobbing its horrid beak at me in a vicious series of pecks meant to take care of me, but in dodging them, I slammed the stick against its head. Eventually, I got behind it, and stayed there as it twisted and writhed in attempt after vain attempt to force me in front of it, and every so often, I ran up and gave its feathered tail a hearty push, sending it stumbling forward in whatever direction it was currently facing.

At length, my efforts paid off. My last push finally sent the bird reeling forward into the little clearing around the sporks’ nest. Almost too quickly for us to see, the sporks mobbed the bird, shredding it. My count was around twenty seconds until nothing but bones remained.

Bunny broke the silence. “Um, yeah, like, remind me not to mess with those spork thingies.”

“You have my heartiest agreement, Miss Bunny.” The sight had been a sobering reminder of the dangers in the woods.

Not long after, we made camp at a widening in the road, Alamsta surprising me by very competently making a good-sized fire as I laid out the bedrolls. Not being a complete novice when it came to nocturnal animals, I asked, “Shouldn’t one of us keep watch during the night, in case one of those birds or something comes by?”

The reply was as frigid as all her utterances to me had been. “In common with all the other wild fauna of the Realm, the Terror Wings shall keep their distance from our fire.” Alamsta hung several water bottles above the now blazing inferno.

“So, like, why do you call them, you know, like, Terror Wings when, like, they don’t have any, like, actual wings, you know?” The bottles began to whistle as Bunny asked her question. Alamsta grabbed one and gestured at me to take the others.

“Because we do, and that’s as much as any of us know about it,” Alamsta replied, pulling something from her haversack with a vicious tug. “Here. These are our dinner.”

She’d tossed me a small shell of rice bread that had one end stoppered with a cork, which proved to hold dehydrated egg noodles. I poured the hot water into the shell and had egg noodle soup with chicken flavoring and a few vegetables in an edible bowl. After giving thanks for the food and safety to eat it in, we began, Bunny chowing down on the soup as avidly as I. A noodle-eating bunny. Huh.

Denizens of the Realm used a modified form of chopsticks to eat, though they were called something that came out as ‘eatware’ to my ears. These and the cork stoppers soon were all that remained of the meal, because we were all famished from the trip.

Reluctantly, Alamsta and I got into our bedrolls. More desultory conversation took place with Bunny, who remained by the fire, until we all reluctantly fell asleep...

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. IV: The Trial of Compassion

I opened my eyes and took in a deep breath. The air was crisp with the cold of early morning in the woods and full of all of the scents you’d expect, good and bad. I heard Bunny buzzing away by the almost-dead fire and grinned to myself. Bunny snored. And so, I discovered a moment later, did Alamsta, but in the same cute way rather than some noxious noise that sounded like a creature that was in terrible pain howling in protest.

Bunny woke almost as reluctantly as I usually did, but I managed to get her hopping (literally) in fairly short order, though she certainly wasn’t a morning bunny. Now, to attend to Her Highness. Was Alamsta awake yet?

A few snarled sentences later, I knew that Alamsta most certainly was awake, and in a mood to flay people alive with the sharp side of her rapier tongue. It would seem that she was not a morning person, either.

Breakfast was the same as dinner, rehydrated egg noodle soup in a rice bread holder; while not terribly filling, the warm liquid helped ward off the morning chill so that we could get going. Alamsta and I bickered over who would do the majority of the site clean-up over the meal, with Bunny trying to get a word in edgewise every so often.

Bunny hopped into my lap, effectively ending any discussion of who was doing what today. “Like, I’ll ride with him today, so you don’t have to, like, carry so much, you know?” When Alamsta opened her mouth to protest, Bunny cut in, “Like, you almost dropped me, like, twice yesterday, you know? I mean, like, you’re not She-Ra, Princess of Power, you know, no matter what you want to think.” Who?

While I was still trying to figure out Bunny’s reference, Alamsta got herself together, and in the span of a very few minutes, we had the site looking like we’d never been there. More feisty exchanges accompanied our labors, but I tried to keep my side light.

The war of words kept going on all morning as we passed more sporks’ nests and other strange creatures, none of which showed any interest in us. Bunny tried to play peacemaker a few times, but Alamsta would have none of it.

Of course, I didn’t help matters by stumbling over a root and almost dropping Bunny and myself into a colony of what Alamsta gleefully pointed out was, indeed, striped death mold.

Bunny finally snapped at Alamsta’s latest snipe. “Can’t you, like, say anything nice? Is it sooooo humiliating to be, you know, nice to him that you won’t even, like, try?” When Alamsta looked down after a moment, Bunny continued, “You know, I so used to be you. That’s why I’m, like, a stupid little fuzzy bunny now. You know?”

Alamsta said nothing for a moment, her head lowered in shame. “Besides,” Bunny said, her tone teasing now, “I know what’s, like, really the matter. You’re just, like, so jealous that he’s carrying me, you know?”

Ahead of us, the branches wove together overhead into a gargantuan series of natural Gothic arches worthy of Notre Dame (haven’t been there yet, but probably next summer). Foreboding filled us, as well as the certain knowledge that beyond the arches was where our destination lay. It was as though some neon sign designer from the Vegas Strip had surrounded the arches with examples of his work pointing the way inside.

We walked through the arches and beheld the single largest wild apple tree I’ve ever seen. The tree was as twisted as it was huge, if not more so. It towered over our little group, the branches reaching out so far that their extreme ends were held up by other trees, forming the huge doughnut-shaped chamber we were in. Gargantuan golden apples (seriously, they were the size of basketballs) hung above our heads, not moving in the least.

“Totally gnarly, dude,” Bunny breathed, and I had to agree, at which point my attention fell to the thick, twisted trunk. A golden plaque shimmered and twinkled at us, inviting us to come forward and examine it. Of course we did.

On the plaque was written:  
The Trial of Compassion  
The Trial of Honesty  
The Trial of Faith  
ALAMSTA, daughter of ALAMANAST

A deep pseudo-voice like those of the Adjudicator and the First Protector spoke. ‘Greetings, Alamsta, daughter of Alamanast. I am the Assessor. Prepare yourself for Testing.’

Before any of us could say anything, a blue halo engulfed Alamsta. Her eyes glazed over, and she went rigid. Neither Bunny nor I could get her to answer us.

‘She is undergoing the First Trial: the Trial of Compassion. Fear not for her physical well-being, Young Protector. When the trials are through, she shall be as fit as she was upon entering this place.’

Even with the Assessor’s reassurances, since Alamsta stood immobile and unresponsive beside me, caught in an illusion visible only to her, I was determined to join her. After all, I could hardly look after her when she wasn't there, could I?

‘Your request is granted, Young Protector; you both shall join her in her Trials, as councillors, but you cannot alter the outcome by any other means.’

As the illusion formed around me, I heard the Assessor add, ‘We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.’

I was in a school gymnasium, and a fairly good-sized one, at that. Currently, it was hosting a formal dance for the student body, who were quite happily cutting a rug to some really nice Cab Calloway songs. Looking down, I discovered that I was dressed for the occasion, and Bunny was standing beside me in a beautiful full gown. We were only a few feet away from where Alamsta stood chatting happily with some of the locals, so we joined her.

“Hey!” Bunny exclaimed happily. “Like, this is, like, my alma mater! Yeah, you know, like, this is where I went to school!” Only Alamsta looked at us when Bunny spoke; the others she was with paid us no heed. Alamsta smiled happily, an expression I’d never seen on her face before, and waved hi to us.

I decided to perform what my Uncle Fixit would refer to as ‘an experiment’. I tried to politely tap the nearest guy’s suit-jacketed shoulder, but my hand just passed through his illusory form. Well, it seemed the Assessor was being all too literal when he said we couldn’t affect anything here.

A noise caught my attention, and I wandered off to the side. Behind the decorations and out of view of the partygoers, three hulking brutes were beating the stuffing out of a much smaller boy. Ah, I thought sarcastically, the golden days of youth.

In another moment, I was joined by the girls, who had been drawn by my sour expression. Bunny looked over and saw the bullies finishing off their prey. “Ew, those are, like, the class bullies I had to, you know, put up with all through school, since they didn’t, like, learn how not to be total jerks until, like, they went to college and everybody was, like, you know, bigger than them.”

Alamsta looked like she wanted to storm over and give the bullies the what-for, but Bunny and I managed to get her to wait until they were gone before she went over to their hapless victim. While Alamsta was still rendering first aid, the Assessor’s voice announced, ‘On to the next Trial.’

The world swam and changed around us...

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. V: The Trial of Honesty

As the world settled into place around me, the booming pseudo-voice of the Power known as the Assessor echoed in my mind. ‘The Trial of Honesty has begun.’ I looked around.

Alamsta, Bunny and I were still in the gym, but now it was packed with even more students, everyone was dressed in normal school wear, and the teachers were all on a raised dais, with the Principal standing at a podium. So, we were at a school assembly, but why?

The microphone squealed out its lack of a sound test in a loud burst of feedback as the Principal began to address the crowd before it could get unruly. “May I have your attention, please.” There was an obedient, if reluctant, silence, almost immediately. “Thank you. As you all know, late last night, pranksters struck at our school, for the first time in its history.”

It was amazing. I was already fighting to stay awake, and the man had said less than fifty words in his incredible, soft, monotonous voice. If he had chosen to market recordings of his as soporifics, he would have cleaned up.

“Oooooh, that’s, like, so impressive considering that your history, like, goes back all of, you know, like, maybe five years at this point,” Bunny muttered under her breath. She seemed in no danger of passing out, so maybe the effect wore off with longer exposures.

“And now, the Head of Discipline, Mr. Bloodsucking-Babykilling-Absolute-Monster-Destroyer-of-Worlds-Ee-Ei-Ee-Ei-Oh will describe the events. Mr. Oh?” I may have gotten the Head of Discipline’s name wrong from being almost entirely unconscious at that point, but I know two things: Bunny’s and Alamsta’s reactions back up my rendition of his name, and everyone abbreviated the name simply as Mr. Oh.

Another man took the stand, and suddenly the assembly became the Revival Tent, with Oh as the manic preacher spewing about hellfire and brimstone and Di-viiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine Vengeance upon the sinners, who were us. Had there been anything free to vibrate in the gym, his booming oratory might have shaken it apart. Well, no soporifics here.

Amidst all the theatrics and histrionics, I managed to gather that the three bullies who had beaten the boy so badly had been the victims of a prank laid especially for them. Now, in the normal run of things, I dislike practical jokes, but for these guys, I could make an exception.

As we sang our third hymn and waited for the altar call, I noticed Alamsta looking guiltier and guiltier, though slightly smug about it, too. Ah, yes. In the phantasmal world created for this test, she must have pranked the bullies in an attempt to show them the error of their ways, or, failing that, disable them to prevent them from hurting anyone else until she could illustrate the point further.

The ‘altar call’ proved to be the true purpose of the assembly. Mr. Oh challenged any who knew Anything, Aaaanything at all about the Heinous Viiiiiiiillainy of this prank to Step Fooooooorward and be Cleansed of their In-iquity, or otherwise go to their Graaaaaaaves an unrepentant sinner, Convicted by their own acts. When the call brought no results, he somehow managed to step his histrionics up a notch.

Alamsta bit her lip worriedly when Mr. Oh announced that, should the Dastardly Culprit not step forth to meet the just punishment and Diviiiiiiiiiiiiine Forgiveness, aaaaaaaaaaaall of the assembled would have to bear the Culprit’s punishment. She could face torture and laugh, but that someone else should suffer in her place?

Instinct took hold of me, telling me that this was the pivotal moment in Alamsta’s Trial, though she herself could not know this. “Do it,” I muttered in her direction as she still hesitated, and Mr. Oh went on and on about the Perils of the Course the culprit had Chosen. “Do it now. Do the right thing, Alamsta.”

Alamsta stepped forward. “I am the one who did this thing.” A shocked gasp arose from the crowd, but Mr. Oh simply looked down at her sternly.

“Are you telling the truth, child, or are you shielding another who bears the true guilt of this?”

Alamsta closed her eyes, braced herself, and said, “I am the guilty one.” She went on to describe a few details of the prank that the orations had left out, which seemed to satisfy Mr. Oh.

“Step forward, child. Step out of the darkness and into the light.” Alamsta moved to the small podium the staff had placed before the dais for the culprit to use.

Immediately, the teachers became the Inquisition and Mr. Oh the judge, pelting Alamsta with question after question from their dais. The other students assembled below glared back at her in silent addition to their leaders’ excoriations.

Had she done this alone, or had she obtained aid in her unholy endeavor? “I acted alone.”

Had she considered that the prank might become a lethal joke, simply by mischance? “I did, and acted to mitigate the possibility. I have no desire to be a murderess.”

Why had she done this?

There was no reply.

Again, why had she done this? There must be a reason. Even simple sadism stands as a reason, though not an excuse.

Alamsta remained silent.

Would this happen again? “I hope not, but I am a weak and mortal woman. Should it happen again, I shall seek redemption from the One.”

Very well. Was she prepared to receive her punishment? “I am.”

One last time, why had she done this?

There was no answer.

“Alamsta, your punishment shall be--”

‘--the Final Trial. Let it begin now.’

The illusory echoes of the pseudo-voice I’d only heard in my head had hardly begun to fade when the world dissolved around me once more...

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. VI: The Trial of Faith

I was bound and gagged against one of the tree trunks, Bunny (in her bunny form once more) beside me. Great. All we needed were some generic faux natives doing some kind of big dance routine and we’d have a perfect Hollywood version of the Human Sacrifice scene.

In front of us, Alamsta faced a magic mirror portraying the Fall of the Realm before some great, hulking beat-men bearing what looked like matchlocks (or perhaps wheel-locks, as I tend to confuse the two). A Ring of Witchcraft, a magic token of power like the Medallion, but its polar opposite, hung between the mirror and Alamsta.

‘Only you can save your Realm now,’ the sleazy voice oozed from out of the darkness. ‘Take the Ring, and you will have more than enough power to keep them all safe. If you don’t, well, then...’

It had all started innocently enough. When the Power known as the Assessor had announced the commencement of the Final Trial, I’d expected something a little more dramatic than our reappearing beneath the giant wild apple tree.

‘The Trial of Faith begins now.’ Once the Assessor had finished ‘talking’, Bunny and I had been attacked from every side by invisible assailants. Never had I wished for the Medallion more. They had finally forced my surrender by threatening Alamsta, and like a good little tough guy, I’d folded like a cheap suit, despite knowing they’d kill her (and me, and our little Bunny too) anyways.

‘Don’t you see? This is your chance to become more than Alamsta the Undistinguished. If you take the Ring, you can show all the men and women who have been laughing at you behind their backs that you are, in fact, greater than they could ever be. Take the Ring and destroy me, and they will finally honor you as you deserve.’

After its last statement, the tempting voice decided it was time to show itself. A sickly green ball of smoke gathered itself into a vaguely human form, and out stepped the Magician, the man I’d supposedly killed off, or at least banished, twice before. Why wouldn’t this yutz just stay dead and gone, already?

“Your Protector and his bunny are bound. You know that without them to guard it, the Realm is helpless before me.” The Magician moved closer to Alamsta. “Only by taking up the Ring to challenge me can you save your home and your people.”

Alamsta swallowed hard. “I must trust the Protectors to guard the Realm,” she said, closing her eyes as she had at the height of the prior Trial. “No matter how bleak the outcome may seem at the moment, I must trust the Protectors and the One Who empowers them, the One Who gave my people the Realm and raised up my fathers to rule it.”

“Perhaps this ‘One’ has decided to unseat those he has raised up,” the Magician hissed. “After all, he let me unseat and dishonor your father. Perhaps your line has run its course, and your true reason for eschewing the Ring is that you haven’t strength enough to tame it.”

Alamsta snorted and turned the sharp blade of her scorn, honed to a fine edge over the past few days on me, over to the Magician. In tones richly laden with sarcasm, she thanked him for making the point and went on to list a number of reasons and facts supposedly in support of his insinuation, but actually refuting it. It was a tour de force from a master of the art that would have had me cheering had I not been gagged.

“Take it!” the Magician screamed. “Take it or I shall slay your family before your very eyes!” The scene in the mirror shifted to show Alamanast and his daughters as a setting of statues, like the daughters had been when the Magician had briefly had control of the Realm before I was Called as a Protector to topple him.

“No,” Alamsta replied calmly. Her face, her voice and her body were all utterly composed now. It was obvious that the crisis was past. She would not be moved now, no matter how the Magician raged at her. Realizing this, he lunged for her throat--

\--And nearly decapitated himself (again) on the Sword, which I held steady at his throat as he tried to pull away. The medallion glowed brightly on my chest, blocking his evil powers from attacking us again. “What shall I do with him, Your Highness?” I asked Alamsta.

“Let him slink away, back to the moldering pestilence from which he came. He can do no more harm here, and I feel his time is not yet come.” Alamsta gestured at the Magician dismissively. “Flee, Creature of Evil, that you may not bring down your Doom upon yourself early.” The Magician vanished, most undramatically, as did the mirror and the Ring.

‘So ends the Final Trial.’ Everyone still present jumped at the sudden ‘sound’ of the Assessor’s announcement.

Alamsta shook herself. “Was any of what I just thought happened actual?” Bunny and I both knew what she was really asking: Was the Realm truly under attack from the Magician’s lackeys? None of us were entirely sure of the answer.

The booming pseudo-voice of the Assessor spoke again. ‘Your Trials in the school were illusory, but the Final Trial had to be conducted by an agent of Evil, for only by a true Tempter can one be Tempted.

‘You have done well, Alamsta daughter of Alamanast, Rightful and Worthy Heiress to the Line of Those Who hold the Throne of the Realm. Go now, in the knowledge that you have been Approved by the Powers--and by the One Above All.

‘Young Protector, it shall not go near so well when we meet again, but not through any fault or failing of yours. Remember this. 

‘Farewell, Bunny. We shall not meet again.’

The pseudo-voice faded away, leaving us alone in the gargantuan clearing.

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. VII: The Hare Splits Oddly

I looked around the doughnut-shaped clearing after the voice had gone, finally asking Alamsta, “Your Highness, what is this place?” Any awe in my voice was totally justified, I can assure you. As I mentioned earlier, the giant wild apple tree the clearing was centered around was thick, twisted and tall, its branches reaching out so far that they needed to rest on other trees lining the edge of the clearing.

“This,” Alamsta said, gesturing at the clearing in its entirety, “is the Chamber of the Tree. It was the first place my forebears saw in this Realm.” She walked over to the massive trunk. “This Tree was planted by Magnatharast the Great, Who Led Us to the Realm. The seed he used came from the Great World Tree, branches from which he used to fashion the Gate which brought us here.”

The three of us went out through the great green archway by which we had entered. Fashioned entirely of branches, it yet managed to perfectly reproduce the classic gothic arch seen in many a European cathedral, in a masterpiece of natural beauty. I half regretted having to leave, but I was also and at the same time more than ready to go on to the next challenge or adventure that would find us, for which I was not forced to wait any great length of time.

We had not gone far down the path when a burst of fire and black smoke exploded barely three feet before us. I could feel the dark power roiling behind the smoke, and it came as no surprise to any of us when a raggedly garbed female form whose aura of evil seemed to suck the light and life from all the glorious verdure around us emerged to confront us.

The woman confronting us looked like an aged, darkened, and twisted version of the Alamsta who stood beside me, hereafter referred to as ‘my Alamsta’ for brevity. She bore the Ring of Witchcraft on one finger, where it glowed with a malevolent fire (and a malevolent ire, as well). Again, I wished I still had the Medallion about me, where it could shield us from whatever evils the Witch had in mind.

I mentioned earlier that my Alamsta’s particular skin tone would be important ‘later on’; that ‘later’ would be now, as the major visible difference between the two was their skin. The Witch’s face was dead white, the white of a fresh cadaver once the blood has been drained, aside from a network of ugly purple veins across her cheeks. The effect was quite ghoulish against her skin that was otherwise identical to my Alamsta’s and the tattered black robes she was wearing.

This dark mirror of Alamsta bared her teeth at us in a wild snarl. “I hate you,” she breathed. “You, the goody-goody who wouldn’t fall, and you, the Protector who wouldn’t let her; I hate you all.” She went on like this for a few minutes, her language growing increasingly vile, her voice constantly rising until she was nearly frothing at the mouth with hysteria, but her opening sentences pretty well summed up the entirety of what she said.

When her hysteria had boiled up to reach fever pitch, Dark Alamsta leapt at me, and, to ward her off, I instinctively brandished--Bunny, the only member of our group she hadn’t mentioned in any bit of her rambling diatribe. The oncoming witch immediately recoiled, rather like Bela Lugosi would when portraying a vampire that was confronted by the Cross.

Bunny’s pure white pelt nearly glowed with a familiar radiance as the Witch cowered away from her small form. “Yeah, I thought so. It's the purity and innocence we bunnies represent that you can't abide," Bunny said. "Isn't it?" In answer, Dark Alamsta turned to flee.

My Alamsta's ram came up to block her dark counterpart's escape. More sheep and more bunnies arrived, I'm not sure from where, and formed a circle around the Witch. “No!” she screamed. “Not again!” She said more--quite a bit more--that I couldn’t understand, but it always came back to a despairing cry of, “Not again!”

“Of course again,” a new voice, much like mine but deeper, said. “The circle must complete itself, after all, Alamsta.” A man popped into existence beside us. He looked like someone mashed me and my father together, and he bore the Sword and the Medallion, albeit with a melancholy air. When he saw us, he smiled, as if understanding something for the first time. “Yes, this circle has been a long time in forming, and it will not be balked.”

“You.” The Witch nearly spat the word, making it as much of a curse as, or more than, any number of profanities could be. I almost expected him to drop dead from the force of the glare she was giving him, the Medallion notwithstanding. She searched for something else to say, but came up empty, and had to satisfy herself with another, “You,” though growled this time.

“Me. And me, as a surprise.” He gestured at me, which startled me greatly. “You tried to escape one defeat, only to meet another, one that, for me, has already come about long ago, and is thus utterly fixed. Your time is up; you must come with me.” He began to chant another of the hymns I’d learned long ago in the monastery. The monks there spend a lot of their time singing.

Of course, the Witch struggled mightily against her fate, but it was useless. Despite her gestures, cries and writhing attempts at resistance, Dark Alamsta inexorably faded as the stranger chanted, as did he, until all that remained of either of them was the dying echo of his voice raised in song, and a burnt patch on the path where the Witch had materialized, the only tangible proof that this had not been yet another illusory test.

“There, but for the One’s grace, go I,” Alamsta breathed. Neither Bunny nor I made any comment, since we were as lost in our own thoughts as she was. It was several minutes before we came to ourselves, and even longer before we remembered that we had actually been trying to get somewhere, and thus should probably be on our way there. Even then, the sheer weight of what we had seen slowed our steps.

The trip back to the hovel at the Hand-Spread took only a few more very silent minutes, which struck me as kind of odd, given that the three of us had taken almost two days to reach the Clearing in the first place. Hadn’t we? It was all a bit hazy now, showing how exhausted I truly was. My limbs began to tremble from it as we walked over to our particular hovel and went stumbling in, Bunny immediately leaping from my arms to the table she’d rested on before.

Right next to Bunny’s chosen resting spot on the table, we found a highly polished golden pitcher awaiting us, accompanied by two gilded green goblets, a matching dish and a note that read, “For the refreshment of weary travelers”. Too tired to wonder at this, I poured a goblet for Alamsta, one for myself, and filled the dish for Bunny to drink from.

The liquid that poured from the pitcher was a peculiar blood-y shade of red, but it tasted wonderful when I sipped it. In another second, I had drained the goblet, yet I refrained from pouring myself another. Somehow, that one glass had quenched me.

“Whoa. Like, that’s one righteous pick-me-up, dude.” So saying, Bunny decided to hop down from atop the table, but as she did, she left a glittering trail of magic sparkles. In another moment, she had gone from a cute little bunny back to her human form. “Oh, well, finally!”

This human Bunny was the very image of the classic California surfer girl: bleach-blond hair, tanned skin, svelte form, and all the rest that you’d expect. She was also around five years older than I, which surprised me for some odd reason. Some instinct I possessed had insisted, and was still insisting, that we were more or less the same age.

A gasp from Alamsta brought my eyes to what was happening to her. Before my disbelieving eyes, Alamsta became a younger version of the Bunny standing beside me, aged to Bunny’s age, said, “Duuuude”, in rather an awed voice, shrank into a cute little white bunny, and finally vanished. I turned to Bunny, but where she’d stood before now stood Alamsta, an Alamsta with a completely flummoxed expression on her face.

Well. This was both perplexing and rather awkward, but before we could break the stifling silence, a woman dressed as an upper servant from the Royal Castle burst into the hovel, her expression one that filled me with dark forebodings. This was probably not good...

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. VIII: To Bear with Unbearable Sorrow

The little woman who had burst into the hovel where Alamsta and I were recuperating from our latest batch of Trials and tribulations was, as I mentioned, small, in her mid-twenties or early thirties, and dressed in the livery of the Royal Castle; she was probably a higher-ranking maid of some sort, and my instincts were screaming that she was the Bearer of Bad News. The fact that she tried for at least thirty seconds to figure out how she would begin was another clue.

Finally, she decided on the direct approach, though the tears clogging her voice made her hard to comprehend at times. “Oh, my Princess, something--something terrible has happened.” Words failed her, again, making me wonder why the Castle staff had sent their least articulate member to tell this tale. Was everyone else prostrated or something? Eventually, however, she followed up her opening statement with this bomb: “Your royal sisters have died.”

Her gaze and her voice blank, Alamsta asked, “Which of my sisters are dead?” She had had six sisters altogether when I first visited the Realm, so the question wasn’t without merit. She hadn’t quite taken the news in yet, though, and I had another feeling, even worse this time, that what was coming would not be accepted easily. Nor was that feeling to be proved inaccurate.

“Every last one has perished.” The maid finally gathered herself together enough to relate that, almost immediately upon Alamsta’s departure, a terrible plague had swept into the Realm, incapacitating most of the local, but killing a few who were usually older or worn-out, and among these few were her sisters, who had, of course, been at the head of the relief efforts and so were utterly exhausted themselves. So everyone else was prostrated, leaving no one to comfort Alamsta. Great.

“No,” Alamsta said, shaking her head in denial. “No no no NO no no no no...” The news had all but deprived her of the ability to speak, only that instinctive denial escaping her over and over again, which was just a sign of how badly she was taking this: an Alamsta without a snipe or a gibe ready to fly was an Alamsta devastated by what she had been told.

Finally, Alamsta said something else. “You’re lying.” Oh, boy. Sneaking up behind her, I grabbed her by the waist, pinning her arms when she would have attacked the hapless messenger maid. She writhed like a madwoman against me, straining to get at the bearer of bad news, screaming, “Liar!” and variations thereon all the while until she finally crumpled into a sobbing wreck.

“See if Alamsta’s personal maid is in any shape--any shape at all--to come here, and then get her here,” I growled at the maid, who promptly fled. I sent a quick and silent prayer heavenward that the idiot would find someone more competent to carry my command out, but I wasn’t terribly hopeful about it.

“You must be strong for your father’s sake, Your Highness,” I told Alamsta, trying to rouse her innate dignity. It’s amazing how grief completely levels us all, tossing everything that we always thought was so important in the rubbish pile while we mourn.

When Alamsta finally calmed down enough to speak, her voice sounded peculiarly dead itself. “They are dead. They are all dead. They are dead, and they are dead because I did not fall to the Magician's temptations.” Now we came to the self-blame. This was going to be rough. Why hadn’t the maid returned with reinforcements?

I was about to deny any culpability on Alamsta’s part and/or point out that Alamsta falling would only have made things worse, but she forestalled me by saying, “And, of course, had I joined him in his evil, I myself would probably have slain them, because that is the nature of evil: it destroys; it never protects.” Then her thin facade of dignity crumpled again, and she burst into another flood of tears, exclaiming, “But they’re still dead!”

OK, now I wanted to kill something. Seriously. I was standing there, listening as someone’s heart slowly ripped itself to shreds, and there was nothing I could do about it. Only killing something might make me feel a little less like a helpless little bunny, and maybe, if I killed the right thing, it might help Alamsta be less sad. Such are the workings of the male mind.

Just then, in the middle of that really tense moment, Alamsta’s personal maid finally arrived, sobbing herself. The two girls fell into each other’s arms, and spent the next few minutes as a sodden mass of tears.

I was about to make a discreet exit when a call from Alamsta halted me. "Please hear me.” Her voice was still rough with tears. “I did not fall because the One sent you to be our Protector, so for that I thank you, but if you would be so kind, I would rather that this day be wiped from both of our memories and never mentioned again."

I tried a clumsy half-bow. “Of course, Your Highness.” I would have added more, but right at that moment, the world dissolved back into the spinning grayness that meant I was returning to our own world from the Realm.

I came back to the Garage with a bang. No, really: there was a thunder-strike right as I became aware of the Coin twirling to a stop in front of me. Uncle Fixit walked in casually, nodded at where the Coin lay on the bench near the remnants of our meal, and said, “That’s a nice Coin,” to which I nodded absently in reply.

It took me a moment to wrench my mind back to things like the Coin, Uncle Fixit, the Garage, and even the storm itself, which was actively announcing itself as a reminder. My mind all awhirl, I stood, asked Uncle Fixit if I might visit the restroom, and walked out of the workroom into the main part of the Garage.

I’m not sure how far I wandered aimlessly before I became aware of the lights. They were definitely not lightning flashes; lightning doesn’t come in those colors. When I went to investigate, though, the passageway from which they’d been coming was empty. I suddenly remembered the ghost story Uncle Fixit had told me over dinner. Was Uncle Fixit pulling my leg? Was the tale true?

Children have only a few advantages over adults when stalking games are involved. Being smaller than most adults, and therefore hiding more easily, is one of them. I squeezed myself into a spot where no adult could, hoping that the lights would return once their maker thought I was gone.

A small man I didn’t recognize walked into my rather restricted view, carrying several bits and pieces from the various bins nearby. “That should do it,” he said in satisfied tones, and then he twiddled his fingers across something I couldn’t see, and promptly vanished, like a stage magician, though I was sure no mirrors were involved here.

I made my way back to the workshop, pondering what I’d seen. Would I ever find the answers to this mystery? Well, I haven’t yet, but I’m determined to try whenever I can visit Uncle Fixit.

THUS ENDS

The Undesired Princess & the Enchanted Bunny (Again)

Being the Third Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion

THE STORY CONTINUES WITH

Portents

Being the Fourth Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion


End file.
